Collapse
by Ana Graves
Summary: How would you react if you discovered that you haven't got much time to live?   A little fic about Jack after he found out how serious his disease is.


**I have just watched "Some pig" and felt so sorry for Jack that I just had to write it. It's strange, because I didn't like him till the end of this episode.**

**I don't know much about medicine, but I did some reading and found out that people with lupus can live from five to approximately twenty years with this disease if it isn't attacking their organs. So I figured out that if it is doing that the number of years will be up to five. If I messed something up, I'm sorry.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Royal Pains.**

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><p><em>The anti-DNA test came back positive for lupus.<em>

Gloves didn't want to be put on. Fingers didn't want to straighten. The club didn't want to fit his hand.

_There is no cure._

He had a feeling of being watched. But by who? He didn't know.

_It could take years to develop._

He sighed heavily, preparing for strike. His hand quivered when he grabbed the club tighter. Just like it wanted to remind him of this damned Dupuytren's thing.

_It's more advanced than we previously thought. The disease is attacking your kidneys._

He got distracted with every little rustle. The wind in the grass. Distant talk of two people. Twittering birds. Gosh, he wanted so much them to finally shut up.

_Tick-tack, Jack._

The strike was a complete disaster. Below every standards. Below even Hank's standards, and that was something really bad.

Damn it!

He wanted to repeat it, to do better, but his hands quivered so hard that he couldn't held the club straight. He suddenly felt dizzy. The club fell from his hands and landed on the grass without a sound. He didn't know if it was an anxiety attack, but when he started panting it began to look like a panic. He hadn't had anxiety attacks before. He had never had one.

_But everything is going to change, isn't it?_

Someone was looking at him from the distance. He didn't want anyone to see him in such a state. He didn't want anyone to feel sorry for him. He disliked mercy. So he just turned around and started walking away from the golf course, from everything he had ever loved, first slowly, but after few seconds he was running. Running away from life.

Life... Such a strange thing. You start to appreciate it when something happens. Or, in his case, when everything collapses.

Yeah, maybe Hank had told him that he can have few years. Five, maximum. Maximum didn't sound like something he could achieve. He was out of luck, after all.

And what did it exactly mean, five years? Five years to cling to life? Five years to finally desire happiness? Five years to say goodbye to everything which was important to him? Five years to realise how badly he wanted to live?

When he was far from the golf course he finally stopped and looked backward. That place represented everything he had ever had. He should have been using these few last moments of freedom that was left to do what he wanted to do the most – to play. But he couldn't even do that right. Wasn't that ironic? He couldn't even say farewell to golf.

And now... how would his life look like? It'll be a constant chase with time. Every tick-tack from his watch, even if he didn't have a watch, echoed in his ears. Time was passing by and he should have become aware of that fact from then on. Every seconds counted, right?

He had a strange feeling of disappointing the audience of some contest. But there was no audience. There were only he and his disease. Maybe this illness was just a reflection of a big failure, which his life was. Maybe.

He looked at the road. Nothing awaited him on his road. Nothing but disappointment, pain and suffering. But, as someone wise had once told him, he couldn't waste a lot of time worrying about something. He had to grabbed the life before it is passed. Even if nothing good awaited him. Even if happiness was out of reach. It was nothing new, to be honest.

So he came back to the golf course, painfully aware of the fact that his life was just passing him by.

_Tick-tack, Jack. _


End file.
